Magic in Tolkien

Not until the end of last year did I see the first part of Peter Jackson's adaption of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and in most aspects I was pleasantly surprised. One of the scenes that most impressed me from a cinematic point of view, however, clashed the most with my view of Tolkien. This was the scene where Gandalf and Saruman laid in to each other with their magic, tossing each other around Saruman's chambers.

It was not just the indignity of seeing Gandalf tossed around that bothered me. What bothered me is that, unlike too many of his fantasy imitators, "magic" is used very sparingly in Tolkien's works.

One of the best explanations of this comes from the second book of the first volume, where an Elf in Lothlorien describes the stealth cloaks given to the hobbits, saying that they are called "magic", but that that word is also used to describe the deceptions of the enemy. Indeed, it seems that most of the "magic" presented in Tolkien is more a matter of craft, and not of hocus-pocus.

Gandalf in the entire trilogy seems to perform four spells: he adds an artistic flourish to the water drowning the Black Riders, he launches a bolt of fire at the wargs, he lights some kindling on Caradhras and he performs a spell of closing on a door in Moria. He actually comments when lighting the kindling that it will announce his position to everyone within hundreds of miles, so that even the smallest spell seems to be a rather drastic matter for a wizard to do.

As for the other major wizard in the story, Saruman, his major magical talent seems to be an uncanny ability to persuade people to his advantage, something we can only wish required a supernatural ability.

It seems then that "magic", meaning any kind of ability that somehow "breaks" or goes outside the laws of nature, is perhaps not present as such in Tolkien's works.